Julie, they are always talking about their regrets. They should’ve spelled your name with a G (the authentic, Italian rendering) ; they should’ve gone down to visit you more often; they should’ve seen the signs; and why the hell did they ever let you take the bus all the way from Providence to your cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital that night that you first felt the pain return? When they get into these conversations, Julie, I tell myself that it makes no difference, saying these things, just to accept the fact that they are all things which we didn’t do. And often times, I am very close to believing myself.

When I think of me and you, I think of November. Do you remember that fall when you stayed and recovered from your surgery with us? Each night, I rushed home from school and finished my homework, so that I would be able to spend the rest of it with you, watching T.V. and rummaging through the family photos which I was barely ever in. I’d stay up late listening the the stories you’d tell me about how it was for you, growing up with two older sisters and two younger sisters. It got to a point where I would retell your stories at school as if I had been there.

If our whole life together had been like that November, Julie, then I’d have no regrets. It wasn’t until last month that someone told me that you and I had shared the same taste in music. Not even now would I be able to walk into a store and pick out something in your favorite color. It is now, when I sit and listen to Kings of Leon in order to make up for all the things I never did with you, that I can hear your voice singing along as if we had done this when you were still alive; when there nothing yet to regret.